


Biblical Questions

by violent_ends



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Bible Quotes, Biblical Reinterpretation, Biblical Scripture References (Abrahamic Religions), F/M, POV Lucifer, Post-Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-10-06 00:16:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20497733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violent_ends/pseuds/violent_ends
Summary: A trilogy of short one-shots in which three different people in Lucifer's life, more or less aware of his true identity, ask him questions about his Biblical past: about a garden, an offer in the desert, and a fall.





	1. The Garden (Trixie)

_The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,_  
  
_but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” _  
  
_"You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman,_  
  
_"for God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”_  
  
_{Genesis 3:2-5}_

*

He shuffles down the stairs in his favourite Armani suit, even though it’s way too early in the morning for him to be already dressed. It’s all for the urchin's benefit, of course: apparently it would be traumatising for her to see him coming from the bedroom in his robe and figure out what they’re up to every night.

Trixie is already sitting at the kitchen counter with a bowl of milk and cereal in front of her; “Good morning, spawn" he greets her as he walks to the coffee maker.

"Hello, Lucifer.”

He ignores the way she eyes him suspiciously, her brow furrowed as she thinks deeply about something – how deep, he can’t know for sure; he’s still assessing the limits of her little brain's capabilities. Only when he sits on the stool next to hers to spike his mug of coffee, she speaks up.

"Lucifer, is mom the kind of friend you need now?”

A smile tugs at the corner of his lips; _right, let’s go with ‘friend', dear._

"Yes, she is.”

Cereals crunch loudly under her small teeth before she talks again.

"I see. So, where did Eve go?”

He blinks, puzzled. _Hell if I know._

"She's… on a road trip, darling,” – it’s not a lie, she must move along _roads_ after all, wherever she is – “to clear her head or something. We all need a little ‘me’ time every once in a while.”

"I guess”, the Detective's offspring shrugs knowingly, pretending to have a clue. “Say, where did you guys meet, anyway?”

It’s only three questions so far – yes, he’s counting – and Lucifer is exhausted. _How does one turn it off?_

"In a garden" he replies automatically, the whiskey in his beverage slowly waking him up.

_Back when the world was fresh and warm from its recent creation, like this coffee; no man-made smoke tainting its skies with streaks of grey._

"Nice! Like, near a playground?”

He grins, looking at the child in amusement. He loves to be mischievous in her presence, because most of the time it flies right over her head.

"I suppose you could say we _played_, yes. She certainly had a lot of fun, I can tell you that.”

_The first taste of humanity on his lips, ripe and full of life; had it really been him tempting her, or the other way around?_

"Cool, cool. But how did it go? What did you say?”

You'd think he would have to struggle to fish inside his mind and pluck the memory out of the sea that is his immortal life, but millennia are as fresh as hours once you've lived them. There is no hesitation in his voice when he answers, and there is no need to dilute the truth, either.

"I asked her ‘You seem bored, love – tired of perfection already?’”

_And she was naked as my Father had made her, for there was no shame in being human before the original sin._

Trixie looks confused as she chews intently around a mouthful of cereals, no doubt pondering another question of utmost importance.

"I don’t get it. If the place was perfect, how could she be tired of it?”

This gives him pause, actually. How to explain to a child that perfection can only be considered such if it’s your own doing? How to describe her what it means to live in a gilded cage, a paradise you can’t escape?

"Well, I suppose it depends on the person, child” is what he comes up with. “Personally, I find perfection _dreadfully_ predictable.”

_It was waterfalls and lakes of liquid crystals and flowers of all the colours you can think of and more, and I hated it, all of it, for it was His greatest pride._

Somehow, the answer seems satisfying to the small human, but her curiosity is inherently limitless and Lucifer knows only her mother will be able to save him when she’ll come down the stairs from her morning shower.

"What did you do to pass the time?” Trixie inquires, eyes piercing and bright.

Things start to get tricky, he realises, but all he needs to do is waltz around the truth and only say what Chloe would deem appropriate for her little monkey to hear.

"Chased each other through the trees. Played hide and seek, but I always managed to find her. Ate a lot of fruit – she had a thing for apples, and so did I.”

_And the whole time I spent kissing her, the whole time I was between her legs, all I could think was “Oh, He'll be so mad, and His wrath will tear this place apart”._

He shivers at his pettiness, recoils from the ghost of a time when wreaking havoc was the only thing that gave him purpose, when spiting Father was his mission and his curse. But it wasn’t entirely his fault if she was unsatisfied, now, was it? Made from someone else’s bone, condemned to forever be one of his parts and never whole?

"That sounds cute" the walking taxing burden concedes with a scowl, unable to hide her jealousy at the fact that Lucifer might have enjoyed a good time with someone other than her mother – it takes time for women to master the art of faking indifference, he’s come to know, and even then, Chloe still has a long way to go, so the child doesn’t have a great example to follow either.

"So you were… happy, with her?” she concludes after a pause, with the same tone his Detective would use to get a murderer to confess.

His smile turns bitter at that: happiness was never part of the plan for him, before.

"I was… _content_” he phrases carefully.

_Content to see Him punish His beloved creatures the same way He had punished me, casting them out for not upholding His impossible standards of righteousness; content to bring suffering into the world, for suffering was all I had to offer._

Things couldn’t be more different now, he thinks as he enjoys a morning chat with the oblivious offspring of the only woman he has ever loved. It’s at times like this that he feels ancient, his back slightly hunched by the weight of what seem like a million different lives but it’s actually just one.

"Do you miss her?” asks the little urchin.

The sound of footsteps down the stairs makes them both turn to find Chloe dressed for work, with a towel wrapped around her hair. She looks at them fondly, always happy to let them have a moment to know each other more.

"No, I don't" Lucifer replies, smiling at her and then down at the child. “I have everything I need.”

_I don’t have a garden anymore, but I have my lover’s laughter; and in this house I'm not a tempter nor a tainter of souls, because she has cleansed mine of sin with her kisses._


	2. The Offer (Ella)

_Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor._  
  
_“All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”_  
  
_Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”_  
  
_{Matthew 4:8-10}_  
  
*

“What do you mean, it’s not cocaine?” he asks his nerdy lab rat of a friend, staring at the packages of white powder on her desk with disappointment.  
  
"I mean that it’s actually flour, can you believe it? The dude must have been getting ready for some _insane_ baking competition, let me tell you.”  
  
"Oh, bollocks" he huffs, shaking his head. “My favourite dealer is on a bloody vacation, I thought I hit the jackpot right here! I'd give away my kingdom for a bit of snowy fun!”  
  
He makes a show of it, gesturing excessively and raising his hand to his forehead in mock despair, knowing Ella will laugh – she took the truth about his devilish identity rather well, he must say, which makes him proud. Instead, she just freezes and gapes at him wordlessly.  
  
"What’s wrong, Miss Lopez?”  
  
She is hesitating, he can tell.  
  
"What you said, it just… it reminded me of something” she admits, almost confesses, like a sin. “Something you did, or _allegedly_ did, you know, in… in the Bible.”  
  
She whispers the last word like a secret, treasures it like a magic spell. It takes him a moment to connect the dots, but not more than that. _Oh dear, this is about our mutual friend on her little cross._  
  
"Right! Forgot about that" he says; and it’s true, he did. Not that high on his list of fun times on Earth, that one.  
  
Ella toys with the lab glasses in her hand shyly, biting her lip.  
  
"So… did you really do it?”  
  
"What, offer him all the kingdoms of the world? Miss Lopez, you should know I would never promise a favour I can’t grant!” he reminds her, amused but a little bit worried underneath. “I just offered him some real estate advice, is all, so he would settle down and stop spreading the Word around.”  
  
_Anything to make Him furious, anything to make Him feel betrayed. Anything to stop hearing of His love and compassion when He had shown none to me._  
  
He swallows down the bile at the back of his throat, shakes his head not to get lost in the past.  
  
"So you didn’t ask him to worship you?” Ella asks, big doe-eyes reluctant, scared of offending him. But it’s okay: he was the one who told her to ask him anything, anytime.  
  
"The whole worship thing is more my Father’s specialty” he says, suddenly struck by a thought. “We actually solved a case involving satanists a bit before you arrived; you should have seen how I put those charlatans in their place.”  
  
_And how it backfired on me, how everyone suddenly decided I was the source of all Evil, as they do, as they’ve been doing since Father gave them breath._  
  
It seems to satisfy her, but not quite, and in truth, maybe no answer ever will.  
  
"What about the rest?”  
  
He claps his hands together, ready to walk down memory lane. _Well, if we must._  
  
"Right, let’s see… I did ask him the bread thing. It was the talk of the town, I was curious.”  
  
_"Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God”, he said, and I thought “Then man is going to starve, because believe me, mate, He’s not much of a talker”._  
  
Ella finally laughs, genuine and bright, and shakes her head as if to say _That’s so Lucifer_. Then she waits, and he knows what she’s wondering.  
  
"About the other thing…” he stalls, sighs, goes on, “okay, I did ask him to jump! But I would have caught him in time! I just wanted to wait a bit and see if Dad was going to intervene.”  
  
_Because he said he was His son and I did not want to believe it was true, didn’t want to accept that the rebellion of the angels might have angered Him to the point of fathering a mortal son. Well, not so mortal, after all._  
  
Ella stares and stares and stares, then says in a whisper, “To find out if he was who he said he was.”  
  
A question buzzes and thrums in the air, a question she dreads to give voice to. _Was he?_  
  
"I know what you want to ask me, Miss Lopez, but I’m not sure you really want me to answer" he tells her, tone soft but convincing.  
  
Her body is tense, fingers gently playing with the cross hanging from her neck, a lifeline in the storm of her doubt. Then she relaxes, and there is affection in her smile.  
  
"You’re right" she concedes, emerging from the fog of her thoughts. “It wouldn’t be called faith otherwise.”  
  
"Precisely" he confirms, then grins, wiggles his eyebrows. “And either way, I wouldn’t tell you.”  
  
"That’s okay, buddy. You’ve already told me a lot.”  
  
A pause, silence in the too-small lab cubicle.  
  
"Is it helping?” he asks, hating how small his voice sounds. _Is it helping you not to run for the hills?_  
  
Ella senses his fear; she’s always been able to catch glimpses of things other people don’t notice, she’s always known the depth of his love and longing for the Detective even back when he was still trying to deny it. She’s always been good at analysing them all like samples under her microscope, unearthing their secrets like badly hidden corpses from the ground.  
  
But even before she answers, he feels reassured. She’s a strong one, their little, unbearably bubbly Ella with her too-tight hugs and ridiculous T-shirts, made stronger by his sister’s silent hand always on her shoulder.  
  
"It is" she says, releasing her grip from around the cross. “And thank you for indulging me, I must be such a bother to you, man.”  
  
Lucifer smiles.  
  
_Not at all, Miss Lopez._


	3. The Fall (Chloe)

_Then war broke out in Heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back._  
  
_But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in Heaven._  
  
_The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him._  
  
_{Revelation 12:7-9}_  
  
*

The air at Lux hums and vibrates to the rhythm of the music, that pleasant throbbing of a night that’s just begun, slowly engulfing him in the shadows he rules over although he may not be the Prince of Darkness anymore, not entirely at least, not with _her_.

"So tell me, did it hurt when you fell from Heaven?” some poor sod blurts out further along the bar they’re sitting at, trying to impress a young female patron and failing spectacularly at it.

Lucifer laughs, almost cackles over the rim of his tumbler.

"I thought that would have gone out of fashion by now, but no, I still have to hear it after thousands of years!”

He looks back at Chloe after eyeing the idiot in amusement, only to find out she isn’t laughing along as he thought. The frown of doubt creases the skin of her forehead, the same way it does when the clues she has and her initial conclusion don’t click together as they should.

"What are you thinking about, love?” he asks.

The Detective skims a finger around the edge of her cocktail glass, then looks back at him gravely.

"Well, you know… did it?”

He laughs out loud again, then blinks; but no, she’s serious.

"You are genuinely asking?”

She just nods in response, with her face and her gentle eyes. She wants to know, and there’s nothing he would deny her. Suddenly the customers around them seem too many and too close, the music too loud, and it must be showing.

"I'm sorry, you don’t have to-"

"I want to" he interrupts her, before clearing his throat from how dry it feels. “Just… not here.”

"Okay" she simply says, and takes his hand to lead him up to the penthouse, silently treading through a crowd of people he doesn’t know, doesn’t want to know, and doesn’t want to be known by – not the way she is allowed to, not like this.

They step out of the elevator and sit on the couch. Chloe doesn’t let go of his hand, but squeezes it instead, sitting at an angle so that her other arm supports her head from the back of the sofa. Her index finger starts tracing delicate patterns on his palm as she waits for him to speak.

"It did" he admits, _hates_ to admit; he’s still too proud, always has been, but so be it. “It was a long, long fall, as you can imagine. I… I lost a lot of feathers, that day.”

_His wings convulsing and spasming on his back as he tries to open them, but the air burns and cuts with the force of His ire, clenches around him like a vice as his chest still hurts from the slash of Michael’s sword and his push when he cast him down._

"Were you… alone?” asks the Detective, eyes shining in the dim glow of the apartment.

"No, I wasn’t. The other rebel angels fell when I did" he replies; he assumes she finds the answer reassuring, but it’s not.

_Their perfect faces, sculpted by the Lord, now twist and contort in anguish, forever deformed by their despair and hatred for him, as the lesser angels who followed him in his folly turn into demonic creatures of the dark; as his own face, unbeknownst to him at first, erupts in scorching hot fire where he’s huddled up in a hole in the bowels of the Earth._

He shudders and tries to untangle his hand from her grasp, as if hellish fire might start bursting out of his skin and burn her, but she doesn’t let him.

"Stay with me" she pleads. “I'm here.”

And she is. Every day and every night she is, even when he’s alone, in his mind and in his dreams. It’s been a shorter fall, the one his heart took for her, but sometimes the landing feels just as terrifying.

He's used to falling though, and lets her catch him.

"What else do you want to know?” he hears himself say, as he squeezes her hand in return.

Chloe is quiet for a moment; there is silence only filled by the distant buzz of nightlife under their feet.

"What did you do, right after?”

"I built my throne and sat on it.”

_I put down a stone and then another and then another, until I was high enough not to hear their screeches and curses, until I could pretend, after everything, to be closer to Heaven than to Hell._

The next pause stretches longer still, and then-

"But why did you do it? Why did you turn against Him?”

It feels like the one-million-dollar question and it probably is, but there is no reward for giving the right answer, in this game; it’s a game of His making and in the end He always wins.

"You’ll laugh at me" he tells his Detective, giving her a little smile. “Or you’ll think less of me.”

"I promise I won’t” comes the swift reply, as her other hand reaches up to cup his cheek, thumb brushing over his cheekbone; coaxing the truth out of him with the touch of a feather, one of many he has lost and grown back. “You should know that by now.”

And well, she’s right. He does know.

"For Him to notice. For Him to _care_” he confesses, the unruly child who acted out and now whines about it, the Devil tearing his chest open so she can take a peek inside, probe at the hollow space there and try to fill it. “For Him to do something other than look away and never answer.”

_For Him to admit he had neglected us, but it was a sin to find Him at fault, a sin to think I knew better._

It sounds and feels like the last question of her interrogation, when she softly asks, “Do you regret it?”

He looks at her, puts his hand over the one she’s pressing against his cheek, and gives an answer that sounds foreign and new as he utters it for the first time in his immortal life.

"Not anymore.”

_Because it led me to you._


End file.
